Fine art sales and advisory — Oslo & Zürich

R. B. Kitaj (1932–2007)

American

R. B. Kitaj was an American painter and printmaker who spent much of his career in Britain. Born in Ohio in 1932, he developed a figurative art shaped by literature, history and the reuse of existing images. His work brings together different visual sources without making their relationships immediately explicit. He was closely associated with the artists grouped under the name School of London.

Biography

Ronald Brooks Kitaj studied in the United States and Europe before attending the Ruskin School in Oxford and the Royal College of Art in London. His early paintings and prints combined images and texts in ways that connected him with aspects of British Pop Art, while his interest in the figure remained central. Literary references and historical experience gave his compositions a layered character. A picture could operate as a meeting of different sources, with drawing providing a strong link between borrowed material and direct observation. His printmaking included collaborations with Chris Prater. Kitaj's first solo exhibition took place at Marlborough in London in 1963, and a major Tate retrospective followed in 1994. He moved to Los Angeles in 1997. His art offers a sustained enquiry into the possibilities of figurative painting in an image-saturated culture.

Available works

Cutie A Warm Mamma

From the lives of the Saints

Home Truths

Jot'em Down Store

Kenneth Koch

Sailor and woman

Collecting & enquiries

Kitaj's work can appeal to collectors interested in the meeting of art, books and history. Individual images often reward further research into their references, alongside attention to drawing and colour. Explore the works shown here and enquire about their specific techniques, editions and documentation.

Make an enquiry